Illinois Public Media News

Before Tim Landis died a year ago, there had been little indication he had heart disease. He’d had an active lifestyle and ate a healthy diet. But an autopsy revealed he had had years of untreated high blood pressure. His widow, Debra Landis, wrote a first-person account of losing Tim and her investigation into the disease that took his life.

Roughly 300 people will spend Friday night out on the street in cardboard boxes, to raise awareness and money to help the homeless during the annual "One Winter Night" in downtown Champaign.

On the 21st: The Stonewall Inn is home to one of the most important moments in LGBT history. The 1969 riots are the subject of a play at the Krannert Center For Performing Arts called Hit The Wall. Plus, is your pet stuck at home in this bitter cold? Just like humans, pets are vulnerable to weight gain and obesity. What can you do to keep your animals healthy, and what can we learn about our own health from our pets? And, the label “Asian-American” has only been around since the late sixties when it started being used by civil rights activists. So today, where do Asian-Americans stand in our country’s ideas about race and identity?

Subzero temperatures closed schools across central and northern Illinois Wednesday, and many remained closed on Thursday. But the Chrisman school district in Edgar County held classes as usual --- although the results were not what its superintendent had expected.

In January 2018, a handful of farmers at a major Iowa pork industry gathering attended a session on the threat of foreign animal diseases. A year later, several dozen people showed up, spurred by the march of African swine fever across China.